U.S. Report Slams Russia and Belarus

U.S. Report Slams Russia and Belarus

U.S. Report Slams Russia and Belarus
By Harry Dunphy
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The United States is criticizing the human rights records of Russia and Belarus but says in an annual State Department report that there were improvements in Ukraine and the Balkan countries.

The report said the most notable human rights development in Russia during 2005 was the continued centralization of power in the executive branch under President Vladimir Putin, which resulted in an erosion of the accountability of government leaders to the people.

"The government's human rights record in the continuing conflict in and around Chechnya remained poor," said the report, released Wednesday.

On the positive side, the report said the judiciary demonstrated greater independence in a number of cases, producing improvements in the criminal justice system. Russia also made progress, the report said, in combating trafficking in people.

The report said the human rights record of Belarus, where presidential elections are set for March 19, remained very poor and "worsened in some areas, with the government continuing to commit numerous serious abuses."

The report said the government of President Alexander Lukashenko reopened an investigation into the disappearance and presumed killing of television journalist Dmitry Zavadsky but made no serious effort to solve the case.


Credible evidence indicated government agents may have killed Zavadsky for reporting that government officials may have aided Chechen separatists.

U.S. President George W. Bush met last week with Zavadsky's wife, Svetlana, and Inna Krasovskaya, wife of a pro-democracy businessman who disappeared in 1999, to underscore his personal support for their cases.

In August, Lukashenko granted the Order for Service to the Motherland to Colonel Dmitry Pavlichenko, named in a Council of Europe report as having played a key role in Zavadsky's disappearance.

U.S. State Department officials said Pavlichenko played a role in the beating and detention last week of opposition presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin, who tried to enter a meeting chaired by Lukashenko.

The report said the number of reported political prisoners had increased.

It noted that last August, the prison sentence of opposition political figure Mikhail Marinich had been reduced from 5 years to 2 1/2. Marinich, a former government minister, was widely regarded as a likely opponent for Lukashenko in the elections.

The report gave a mixed review to Ukraine, saying its human rights record significantly improved in areas such as freedom of expression and right to assembly but remained poor in areas such as violent hazing of soldiers and anti-Semitic acts.

Among the improvements, the report noted "increased accountability by police officers" and gradual improvements in prison conditions.

The report said mass media made significant gains in independence.

In the Balkans, the report said, Croatia demonstrated increased willingness to prosecute war crimes and increased cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia at The Hague, Netherlands.